Eat for life when you have diabetes

A “diet” for diabetes isn’t really a diet. It’s a healthy way of eating that controls your intake of calories, fat, sugar, carbohydrates, protein, and salt. The ideal diabetes eating plan would be good for almost anyone, even if that person doesn’t have diabetes.

The amount of carbohydrates, fat, and protein you eat affects your blood sugar levels. To keep your blood sugar levels normal, you need to make healthy food choices, eat regularly without skipping meals, exercise regularly, and take the medication your doctor prescribes.

Eating a healthy diet can help you:

• Maintain a healthy weight or lose weight, if you are overweight.
• Prevent your blood sugar from getting too low.
• Reduce the risk of developing health problems caused by diabetes (e.g., heart disease or high blood pressure).
• Control your blood sugar levels.
• Control your cholesterol levels.

The basics of a good eating plan are:

1. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.
2. Keep fat and sugar consumption down.
3. Keep portions sensible.

Here are a few additional guidelines to remember:

• Eat a variety of foods. Having a colorful plate is the best way to ensure that you are eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and other forms of protein such as nuts, low-fat dairy products, and whole grains and cereals.
• Maintain a healthy weight. If you are overweight, losing 5%–10% of your body weight could help improve your diabetes.
• Choose foods high in fiber, such as whole grain breads, fruit, and cereal. You need 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day.
• Watch your portions. Eat only the amount of food in your meal plan. Eat about the same amount of food each day.
• Eat meals 3 to 5 hours apart.
• Do not skip meals.
• Eat meals and snacks at regular times every day.
• If you are taking a diabetes medicine, eat your meals and take your medicine at the same times each day.

How high blood pressure affects your body

High blood pressure is sometimes called the silent killer because it can quietly damage your body for years before symptoms develop. Uncontrolled high blood pressure could lead to a heart attack or stroke and may leave you disabled. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can also:

Damage your arteries
Healthy arteries are flexible, strong, and elastic. Their inner lining is smooth so that blood flows freely, supplying vital organs and tissues with adequate nutrients and oxygen. If you have high blood pressure, the increased pressure of blood flowing through your arteries can gradually cause a variety of problems, including narrowing and damaging arteries or forming an aneurysm. (An aneurysm is a balloon-like bulge in an artery caused by weakening of the artery wall.)

Damage your heart
Your heart pumps blood to your entire body. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to heart disease or heart failure.

Damage your brain
Just like your heart, your brain depends on a nourishing blood supply to work properly. High blood pressure can cause several problems, including stroke and dementia.

Damage your kidneys
Your kidneys filter excess fluid and waste from your blood — a process that depends on healthy blood vessels. High blood pressure can injure the blood vessels leading to and inside your kidneys and cause several types of kidney disease, including kidney failure. Having diabetes in addition to high blood pressure can worsen the damage.

Damage your eyes
Tiny, delicate blood vessels supply blood to your eyes. Like other vessels, they, too, can be damaged by high blood pressure. You could develop retinopathy (blood vessel damage) or fluid buildup behind the retina.

There are many places where you can get your blood pressure checked — your doctor’s office, a health clinic, a health fair, a fitness center, or a community center. Many pharmacies also have blood pressure machines. You can even buy a blood pressure monitor for your home.

If your blood pressure is high, the good news is that you can lower it through lifestyle changes and/or medication. If you smoke, you should quit. Drinking less alcohol can help too. You should stay at a healthy weight, get regular exercise, and avoid salt and saturated fat. Your doctor may want you to take medicine for your high blood pressure. If that is the case, be sure to take the medicine just as the doctor says.

Exercise is possible if you have COPD

If you have COPD, you may feel like it’s impossible for you to exercise. But that’s not necessarily the case. Exercising can take on a variety of forms and be performed to almost any skill level. In other words, you don’t need to be able to run or lift heavy weights in order to do something good for your body.

Before starting any new exercise program, talk to your doctor. Exercising when you have COPD can help your breathing, allow you to stay as active as possible, and improve your quality of life. Exercise can also:

• Improve how well your body uses oxygen, which is important because people with COPD use more energy to breathe than other people do.
• Decrease your symptoms and improve your breathing.
• Strengthen your heart, lower your blood pressure, and improve your circulation.
• Improve your energy, making it possible to stay more active.
• Improve your sleep and make you feel more relaxed.
• Help you maintain a healthy weight.
• Enhance your mental and emotional outlook.
• Reduce your social isolation, if you exercise with others.
• Strengthen your bones.

If you decide to exercise, you can choose from any or all of the following categories:

Stretching exercises to lengthen your muscles and increase flexibility. Stretching can also help prepare your muscles for other types of exercise, decreasing your chance of injury.

Aerobic exercises for working your heart and lungs and improving their endurance. This helps your body use oxygen more efficiently and, with time, can improve your breathing. Walking and using a stationary bike are good aerobic choices.

Strengthening exercises involve tightening muscles repeatedly to the point of fatigue. When you do this for the upper body, it can help increase the strength of your breathing muscles.

Breathing exercises help you strengthen breathing muscles, get more oxygen, and breathe with less effort.

You can practice the following 2 breathing exercises for 5 to 10 minutes, 3 to 4 times a day.

Pursed lip breathing:

1. Relax your neck and shoulder muscles.
2. Breathe in for 2 seconds through your nose, keeping your mouth closed.
3. Breathe out for 4 seconds through pursed lips. If this is too long for you, simply breathe out twice as long as you breathe in.
4. Use pursed-lip breathing while exercising. If you experience shortness of breath, first try slowing your rate of breathing and focus on breathing out through pursed lips.

Diaphragmatic breathing:

1. Lie on your back with knees bent. You can put a pillow under your knees for support.
2. Place one hand on your belly below your rib cage. Place the other hand on your chest.
3. Inhale deeply through your nose for a count of 3. (Your belly and lower ribs should rise, but your chest should remain still.)
4. Tighten your stomach muscles and exhale for a count of 6 through slightly puckered lips.

If you experience any of these signs or symptoms, stop your COPD exercise program right away. Sit down and keep your feet raised while resting. If you don’t feel better quickly, call your doctor or 911.

• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Weakness
• Rapid or irregular heart beat
• Severe shortness of breath
• Pain
• Pressure or pain in your chest, arm, neck, jaw, or shoulder

Stress-induced asthma attacks

What do school exams, public speaking, family conflict, and public disasters have in common? They all can affect your asthma.

Scientists have documented that stressful events can be associated with asthma symptoms. Stress may directly affect your body or cause you to manage your asthma less effectively.

Stress and anxiety can cause physiological changes that may provoke an attack. These strong emotions trigger the release of chemicals, such as histamine, which can then cause the narrowing of your airway.

During periods of stress and anxiety, people might forget to take their asthma medications, making an attack more likely. Stress-related hormones also reduce the body’s ability to fight off colds and other respiratory infections. When you reduce your stress level, you may find that the number of asthma attacks you have decreases.

Regardless of what is causing you stress — money, job, family, health — the steps to better management are the same:

• Ask for help.
• Exercise.
• Get enough sleep.
• Learn relaxation exercises.
• Create an action plan with your doctor so you always know what to do when you have an attack.

Pollens — good for plants, bad for allergies!

Ah, ah, ah CHOOOO! Seasonal allergies are triggered by pollen, a fine, powder-like material produced by flowering trees, grasses, and weeds. Pollen is constantly being blown all around us by the wind. Pollen counts go up and down depending on the season.

Pollen counts measure the amount of pollen in the air. This information can be very helpful to people who have allergies. To find the pollen count in your area, go to www.weather.com and click on the Forecasts tab and then select Pollen.

If you have asthma or COPD, it is very important that you stick to your medication plan during allergy season. Your medications are your base for good asthma control. Know the medications that are in your treatment plan, when you should take them, what the result should be, and what to do if they don't work. Never let yourself run out of medication.

The key to asthma control is controller medication

John planned to take his dog, Quincy, for nice long walk. But he had to come home much sooner than expected. Just a few minutes into his walk, he suffered a major asthma attack. John had his quick-relief medication with him, but the attack left him feeling tired and weak. He had been having more attacks lately and knew he had to call his doctor to ask what he could do to get his asthma under better control. The last thing he wanted was a trip to the emergency room.

John's doctor said that he needed to be on a controller medication for his asthma. Being on a controller medication will give John:

• Better asthma control
• Fewer symptoms and flare-ups
• Less need for hospitalization

If your asthma symptoms are interfering with your normal activities, you should call your doctor, make an appointment, and talk about going on a controller medication. If your doctor has prescribed a controller medication for your asthma, it's important that you take it as directed.

Controller medications work either by reducing mucus production and swelling/inflammation of the airways or by relaxing the airways and making them wider. They are "slow acting," meaning they take some time (a few weeks) to begin working. When you have an asthma attack, you will still need to use your quick-relief medication. But if you're on the right medication at the right dose, you should not have as many asthma attacks.